I sent the message reposted below 10 days ago before I went out of town and
discovered to my dismay when I returned that the message was not delivered
for some reason. So I will respost it now, and will try to catch up on the
continuation of this discussion as soon as I can.
Fred
Thanks very much to Costas, Riccardo, Chai-on, Duncan, Jerry, and Mike W.
for their very interesting (and concise!) comments on commodity money in
Marx's theory. I don't have the time now to fully respond to these comments
before I leave town this afternoon, but I will come back to them when I
return and I hope the discussion will continue.
I am especially interested in Costas' view that commodity money allows us to
theorize the emergence of non-commodity money and is not incompatible with
the latter. I would appreciate it very much if Costas would elaborate
sometime on this interesting argument. (COSTAS: could you please send me
electronically a copy of your "EEA paper". My address is:
fmoseley@laneta.apc.org I am very interested in reading this. I promise
some comments).
Riccardo, I will reread your EEA paper and study your arguments there. It
seems to me that one important disagreement is between Riccardo and Costas.
Costas seems to argue that money does not have to be a commodity in Marx's
theory and Riccardo seems to argue the opposite. Perhaps the two of you
could pursue this apparent fundamental disagreement, for the benefit of all
of us.
I also appreciate more now Duncan's work on the determination of the value
of non-commodity money. If money is not a commodity and if the value of
money is to be determined prior to prices (as in Marx's theory), then the
value of non-commodity money must be determined in some way - and presumably
in some way compatible with the labor theory of value.
Thanks again for a very illuminating discussion and I look forward to its
continuation.
Comradely,
Fred